Shut Up Rant

Shut the f*ck up or f*ck right f*cking off

I don’t know if it’s my age but I am increasingly find myself turning into a Victor Meldrew type at gigs. Is it just me or does the downside of the current popularity of live music seem to be the increasing number of sociopaths you come across in your local venues?

Of course you always get issues at bigger gigs. There’s the guy who doesn’t want to go down the front to mosh but instead jumps about exactly where he is - tramping all over your wife and other small friends in the process. Another favourite is the lad who thinks its funny to chuck his nearly empty glass of beer over everybody in front of him. I have a theory with this one that it’s connected to the smoking ban. Unable to make your clothes stink with his nicotine habit he’s found that he can get even more people with his piss poor lager.

These days though I’m mainly attending smaller quieter gigs where the above-mentioned Neanderthals rarely tread. My major gripe is the people who insist on talking loudly throughout the gigs that they and (more importantly) I have paid good money to see. I first noticed this during my exile down South in the nineties. I put it down to London poseurs wanting to be seen at the right gigs but not been arsed with the music. In any case they mainly stood at the back and so if you went down the front you could scarcely hear them.

These days even the people on the front row (who you would think would be the biggest fans of the act) are breaking off from listening to their heroes to have mundane uninteresting conversations that to be brutally honest are poor entertainment value and could be undertaken at any time preferably out of my earshot. Of course since they are competing with some reasonably loud music they find themselves shouting their heads off. And don’t even get me started on people attempting mobile phone conversations!

Of course I don’t have to stand there and listen to their verbal diarrhoea. If there’s room I can move away (and frequently do). Another option is to confront the source of my annoyance. As mentioned previously these people are often sociopaths. Upon finding that you are annoyed they are just as likely to increase their conversation in order to annoy you more.

So here’s a plea to all those people out there who are desperate to talk to their mates. Why not go down the pub; meet up in a café; have a nice bite to eat together; go round their house or give them a ring (somewhere well out of my earshot). Just don’t come to a gig and stand next to me ok!

Pete Ellis